The United States and China have had a tumultuous relationship in the modern world. In the beginning of the nineteenth century, the young U.S. republic launched an early and important China trade, and U.S. Protestants sent their most competent missionaries to preach the faith in China. Sun Yat-Sen studied in the United States. And during the Second World War, the U.S. was the principal outside military support for China in their resistance to Japanese overrule. It was at U.S. insistence that China was included as one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council in 1945. But when the Chinese Communist Party came to power in 1949, the friendship seemed to disappear. The U.S. threw its protective fleet around Chiang Kai-Shek's Kuomintang which had retreated to Taiwan. And Chinese volunteers supported the North Koreans in the war that began in 1950. In the United States, the "China question" had begun: "Who lost China?" was the theme of those Americans who actively urged military action against the Communist regime. And in China, the United States was termed the leading imperialist power in the world as well as a "paper tiger." Cold war rhetoric between the U.S. and China exceeded in decibels even U.S.-Soviet Union rhetoric. Then things changed. China broke decisively its alliance with the Soviet Union. The Chinese began to engage in "ping pong diplomacy" with the United States. And suddenly, to the world's surprise, there was Richard Nixon in China sipping tea with Mao Zedong. Most commentators gave this a simple geopolitical explanation. Both powers wished to outflank the Soviet Union, which each regarded as the primary opponent, at least in the short run. And it was of course only Nixon and Mao, with their reputation as hardliners, that could have brought about such a dramatic reversal of rhetoric. What started as merely sipping tea together developed into a significant change in the form and degree of participation of China in the world-economy - ever greater, ever more open, ever more profit-oriented. This is what the United States seemed to want, and this is what China seemed to want. Neither Tienanmen nor the collapse of the Soviet Union seemed to slow down the pace of Chinese economic involvement in world trade or of improved political relations with the United States - until a few years ago. There was no single event that led to questioning this trajectory. Still, once again there seemed to be voices on both sides reviving the old rhetoric. The U.S. thought China was becoming too threatening about Taiwan. China did not in the least appreciate that the U.S. Air Force bombed its embassy in Belgrade. The U.S. said it was an accident, but the Chinese manifestly did not believe it. I have discovered that many people are returning to their question of more than a quarter century ago: will there be war between the U.S. and China, and when? The very question seems to me to miss the point of what is happening. Let us review the putative "alliance" between the two powers that was begun in the 1970's. It is certainly not based on formal ideological affinity. Indeed, it involves sweeping under the carpet the official ideological differences. The basis of the relationship has been primarily economic, what each side as its economic interests of the next 20-30 years, if not longer. What does the United States want of China? The primary economic problem of the United States for the next 20-30 years is how to maintain its central role as a locus of capital accumulation in a "triadic" world-economy in which it is engaged in very keen competition with western Europe and Japan. It will not be easy. When we enter the next major expansion of the capitalist world-economy (a new Kondratieff A-phase), it is by no means certain that the U.S. will be able to corner more quasi-monopolies of the new leading industries than its rivals. And since a triadic competition usually reduces to a dyad, it is possible to foresee a U.S.-Japan economic arrangement in opposition to western Europe. If this occurs, then this node will obviously need four things: an enlarged zone of capital investment, an enlarged zone of low-cost production, an enlarged consumer market for the new leading industries, and supplementary military strength. China offers all four in one fell swoop. It seems elementary that the U.S. would therefore give priority to including China in some zonal arrangement. This will be of course in Japan's interest as well, if not ever more. But given Japan's legacy of Chinese resentment, the U.S. must necessarily take the political lead in trying to bring this about. Now what are China's interests in the next 20-30 years? China has learned from its history that it can only be respected in the world if it is a unified state. The underlying political strength of the Chinese Communist Party resides in the fact that it restored such unification in 1949 after a long period of disintegration. Priority number one for the Chinese leadership is thus simply holding the country together. This explains both the firm political hand internally and the emphasis the Chinese government places on reintegrating Taiwan into the Chinese state. This also explains the effort and expenditure they are putting into building a powerful and modern armed forces. It is not that Beijing wishes to expand its zone of sovereignty. Rather it wishes to expand its zone of suzerainty, to revive an old expression long used in accounts of Chinese empires. The goal of political strength is pursued primarily in order to achieve economic strength. The Chinese leadership understands quite well how the capitalist world-economy works. They know that there are different ways in which a weak economic zone can be integrated into the commodity chains of the world-economy. The Chinese can be peripheral exporters who keep very little of the surplus-value they create. And this is precisely their great fear about the future. Or they can put in place various political mechanisms which will enable them to get and keep a larger slice of the world economic pie. This is their middle-run objective. So what is the noise of the last few years, the renewed rattling of swords, the heightened rhetoric of conflict? In a word, it is bargaining. The United States wants China to "open up" more and thereby be included in the World Trade Organization (WTO). China wants to get into the WTO, but on terms that will protect some of its nascent competitive industries. And this debate on economic terms takes place in multiple arenas and under many guises. Naval maneuvers in the China Sea or U.S. congressmen berating the China's record on human rights may be seen as part of the bargaining. Observe two things. China clearly seeks to maintain and expand ties with a number of middle-range powers around the world that are seeking to improve their nuclear arsenal. This annoys the United States, and China has been careful each time to go so far, and no further, or better put, to go so fast, and no faster. It fights U.S. resolutions in the Security Council, but in the end it abstains and does not veto them. And on the other hand, look at the current presidential race in the United States. As of now, there are four serious candidates: Bush and McCain as the possible Republican candidates, Gore and Bradley as the Democratic. These four candidates seek to differentiate themselves from each other. There is only one major geopolitical issue on which there seems to be tacit agreement - maintaining the approach to China that has been pursued by every U.S. president from Nixon to Clinton. So no war, only hard bargaining. Immanuel Wallerstein ____________________________________ Go to List of Commentaries Go to Fernand Braudel Center Home page